THE Presidential candidates of 3 political parties at the just concluded Election debate for presidential candidates have all agreed that needed attention has not been given to education sector, as they roll out their plans for the sector.
At the debate, one of the candidates argued that the budget for the education sector which he said was very poor, was a contributory factor to the decay in the sector, while other harped on plans to train the teacher to effectively impart knowledge on the pupils and students.
The Presidential candidate of the Alliance for New Nigeria (ANN), Fela Durotoye said he would focus on motivating the teachers in other to contribute greatly to the success of the students.
“It is critical that we are able to ensure that all our citizens, has the best opportunity not only to get the foundation but to ensure that they go as far as they can go in their aspiration to get an education for opportunities in the marketplaces and to start their own business.
“So we have ensured that our teachers are the kind of people that are committed to the success of the students, we must ensure that we have the best teachers who are subject express, we must invest in infrastructure,” Durotoye said.
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Also the Presidential candidate of the Young Progressive Party (YPP), Professor Kingsley Moghalu said he would initiate the political will to make education a priority in the country, and also end the strike by the Academic Staff Union of University (ASUU).
“We have a very strong attachment to education, and I happen to be a professor, I have practical experience in this area.
“The first thing we will do is that we will bring to education the political will to make it a priority because the progress of Nigeria rises or falls on the strength of our educational system.
“Today, education is about 7 per cent of our budget, in my presidency, we will begin the first budget of 2020 with about 20 per cent devoted to education, that’s not enough because you can throw money at problems and it doesn’t solve the problems.
“We will invest in teachers’ training we will train and certify Nigerian teachers at primary schools, at secondary school especially, we will invest in curriculum reforms, 60-70 per cent if the curriculum will be moved towards technology, vocational skills and entrepreneur, and finally, I will end ASUU strike in Nigeria,” he said.
The Presidential candidate of the Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPN), Dr Oby Ezekwesili, in her submission, said she was going to review the remuneration of teachers and partner the private sector to provide housing for teachers.
“The public schools are the basis of lifting people out of poverty, and since our agenda is the lift 80 million Nigerians out of poverty, the education of the poor in the public schools will be paramount for us, and so the first thing is identifying what is missing in our schools today and fix them, this has to with why Justin the quality of the teachers, the quality of the teachers is dependent on the kind of training that they get.
“We will also give greater power to the Teachers Regulatory Council to be able to regulate the teaching profession to bring prestige dynamism to it, we will also work on the matter if the remuneration of the teaching profession. One of the key things that we will focus on is housing all teachers, it is program that the private sector had already indicated significant interest in.
“Then we will focus on the curriculum issue, one of the major problems of curriculum is how dynamic it changes, so for public education, it is critical that private sector involvement, enables us to see how critical reasoning, creativity and as well as entrepreneurial already begin at the level of primary education,” she noted
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